Longitudinal predictors of reading and math trajectories through middle school for African American versus Caucasian students across two samples.

Abstract

This study's primary purpose was to examine the relative contribution of social-behavioral predictors to reading and math skills. The study expands on Duncan et al.'s (2007) work by using longitudinal methodology from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) databases, and by focusing on potential differences in patterns of early predictors of later reading and math trajectories for African American versus Caucasian students. Predictor measures were selected at kindergarten, and the outcomes included standardized reading and math scores obtained from Grades 1, 3, 5, and 9 for the SECCYD sample, and Grades 3, 5, and 8 for the ECLS-K sample. Consistent with Duncan et al.'s findings, results reflect the relative contributions of early reading and math skills to later functioning in these respective academic domains for both samples, and there are indications for the importance of early expressive language skills to both reading and math in the SECCYD sample. Findings related to the power of social-behavioral predictors, however, are not consistent across samples. Although the SECCYD sample evidenced no such predictors, several interactions in the ECLS-K sample suggested the moderating effects of early ratings of aggressive behaviors and internalizing behaviors on later reading and math for African American students. The moderating effects of early teacher ratings of attention and internalizing behaviors for African American students as compared with Caucasian students in later math growth also were noted. The importance of early social-behavioral functions as related to later academic skills remains an important area of inquiry.

Early literacy and early numeracy: The value of including early literacy skills in the prediction of numeracy development

“…Only children's grade was significantly predictive of variance in children's Calculation subtest. These findings follow with past research that has identified links between early literacy skills and early mathematics development (Duncan et al, 2007;Hecht et al, 2001;Hooper et al, 2010;Lee et al, 2009;Matthews et al, 2009) and fill a gap in this research domain by identifying the unique relations between early literacy and early numeracy skills.…”

“…The two central domains of children's early academic achievement are reading and mathematics. These two domains not only are important individually but also are necessary for the reading skills are predictive of each other over time, even as late as middle school and high school (Hooper, Roberts, Sideris, Burchinal, & Zeisel, 2010). Potential explanations for the significant relations between these domains include genetic, cognitive, and environmental links (Farrington-Flint, Vanuxem-Cotterill, & Stiller, 2009;Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004;Hart, Petrill, Thompson, & Plomin, 2009;Rohde & Thompson, 2007;Spinath, Spinath, Harlaar, & Plomin, 2006;Swanson & Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004).…”

“…Although less studied than phonological awareness, language skills have also been found to be related to concurrent mathematics performance and predictive of later mathematics performance (Hooper et al, 2010;Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010). Much of the application of mathematical knowledge to basic computational and comparative skills is inherently dependent on children's understanding of language.…”

Processes in the development of mathematics in kindergarten children from Title 1 schools

“…There is growing consensus concerning which cognitive and linguistic processes are important to early math development (and math disabilities) (e.g., Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2006;Geary, 1994). Although intelligence is known to be related to the development of cognitive, linguistic, and mathematics skills (Geary, 1993(Geary, , 2007Noël, 2009;Primi, Ferrão, & Almeida, 2010;Stock et al, 2010), recent research suggests that vocabulary is involved in solving many different types of math problems (Foster, Sevcik, Romski, & Morris, 2014;Hooper, Roberts, Sideris, Burchinal, & Zeisel, 2010;LeFevre et al, 2010;Praet, Titeca, Ceulemans, & Desoete, 2013). Evidence also indicates that phonological processing abilities (PPAs) are related to children's early math achievement (Baddeley, 1986;Bull & Johnston, 1997;Clarke & Shinn, 2004;Dehaene, 1992;Dehaene, Piazza, Pinel, & Cohen, 2003;Geary, Hoard, Byrd-Craven, Nugent, & Numtee, 2007;Hecht, Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2001;Vukovic, 2012).…”

The Acquisition of Preschool Mathematical Abilities: Theoretical, Methodological and Educational Considerations

“…Taken together, these studies provided empirical evidence for the pivotal role of young children's phonological awareness skills in the acquisition and further development of mathematical competencies. Although far less studied than young children's phonological awareness skills, oral language also proves positively and predictively related to children's mathematical development (Hooper, Roberts, Sideris, Burchinal, & Zeisel, 2010;Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010;Toll & Van Luit, 2014). A limited number of investigations on young children's print knowledge and mathematics, indicated that the former (linguistic) skill is correlates with and even predicts the latter (mathematical) competencies (Matthews, Ponitz, & Morrison, 2009;Piasta, Purpura, & Wagner, 2010;Purpura et al, 2011).…”